Let’s talk about France!!!

So…I applied for a teaching position in France (I know, what the heck was I thinking?!?). Oh, I know, I was thinking that it will be easier to move to France with a work visa and a job instead of just going on my own and spending all my hard earned Japan savings. Also, while the French teaching program is basically the same as in Japan (working as an assistant in public schools) there are a few KEY differences. The good difference: I will teach no more than 12 hours a week AND I do NOT have office hours so I will be working ONLY when I’m teaching, namely, 12 HOURS per week. Yeah! (Okay, it’s not that I’m lazy but I have way better ways to use my time other than working.) The bad difference: In Japan I make a pretty decent wage and have very cheap housing provided. In France I will probably have to find/pay for my own housing and my pay is a pittance. (Probably works out to about the same hourly though. :p)

Well, after living in the land of “can-you-eat-this?” (“because-our-food-is-so-outrageously-weird-we-totally-don’t-expect-
foreigners-to-be-able-to-choke-it-down”) I can’t help but chuckle when I read the forums for French Teaching Assistants complaining thusly: “Where can I find cheddar?” “I can never find bacon here!” “Doesn’t anyone else miss hamburgers?” For goodness sakes people!! You live in the land of corner produce markets, freshly baked baguettes and a wider array of delicious cheeses than…than…probably anywhere!! Who CARES about bacon, cheddar and hamburgers?? Try eating tiny fish, raw horse, fermented soybeans and seaweed by the ton and we’ll SEE how much you appreciate your non-cheddar-bacon-hamburger French food.

Well, the school year here finished a week ago.  Now the students have about a week or two of vacation before they start back up again.  Last Friday I went to a graduation ceremony at one of the Junior High Schools where I work.   A few students were crying but most of them just looked uncomfortable during the two hour program.  (And I mean literally uncomfortable because it was in the gym and was FREEZING.)  Since we have to wear our “inside” shoes in the gym all the parents who came brought some sort of slipper to wear.  As I surveyed the parents I saw that most of them were wearing something similar to a regular slipper a grandma would wear.  But then I got to the front row where I saw someone’s father, dressed in a nice business suit, legs crossed…with a pair of GIANT, plush Minnie Mouse slippers on his feet.  Oh boy, the things they can pull off with a straight face here.

This Tuesday I went to a graduation ceremony for an Elementary school.  In Junior High School the kids wear their uniforms to graduation but at elementary school they don’t wear uniforms yet so I had the added pleasure of seeing the “dress up” outfits the children wore to this special occasion.  While most of them were slightly dull (most of them were dressed in what looked like a school uniform anyway) there was the occasional hip kid with the true “Japanese style.”  Included in those was the girl with a full petticoat, high socks and a massive flower pinned to her side ponytail and a future-handbag-holder boy wearing skin tight plaid pants with a blazer and puffy pink shirt collar poofing out the top (a la Prince).  The funniest thing was that rather than looking ridiculous and out of place (as they would have in America) they actually looked pretty adorable.

While the kids have a short vacation, I am stuck coming in to the office and sitting with nothing to do but post on the internet for a full four weeks.  (Except for next week when I vacation in Okinawa!)